


But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

by Herewego (Loversarelosers)



Series: I just wanted you to know(that this is me trying) [1]
Category: Weekend Update (SNL)
Genre: Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Pain, References to Depression, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28107969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loversarelosers/pseuds/Herewego
Summary: Nothing stings or smarts, only gnaws deep in his body. Maybe he needs to sleep. Scratch that, he definitely needs to sleep, but there’s just not enough time.OrColin is having a terrible time and Michael is incredibly adept at hugs.
Relationships: Michael Che & Colin Jost
Series: I just wanted you to know(that this is me trying) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2059212
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read as a prequel to the other fic in this series! The more suggestions for this kind of thing, the better. I love reading your comments.

It’s far too late to be feeling so empty. There’s that familiar tugging again, the beginnings of a headache and something more sinister, something more familiar.

It’s been a long few days. A long few weeks. He’s been ignoring the pull of the void for God knows how long now, just to stay sane and productive. He paces the room again, as he’s been doing for the past two hours. Michael is absorbed in his own editing, the only sound the hollow scratch of pencil on notepad and the click of keys. 

He closes his eyes for a moment, stands quiet. He hasn’t real sleep, not real, REM, dreamless comatose sleep, in days and days. All of this anguish, all of this pressure, it’s crushing him like a tin can on every side and every angle. Painful pressure, squeezing him as he tries to contort to fit new constraints, tries to make himself smaller to make room. But all that fucking pressure just flattens him out and hammers down his rough edges into painful numbness. 

“You good, man?”

His fingers tug at his skin as he runs his hands across his face and he feels disgusting, he feels like he’s peeling and flaking away and he probably is because he definitely hasn’t washed his face in days. His teeth feel grimy but he hasn’t eaten, hunger shooting from his stomach up like a chill, like a shiver is traveling through his shoulders and through his hands. 

His eyes ache in the back of his head, he feels like they’re going to explode into a pulpy gushy mess of disgusting bloody tissue and nerves. His fingers slide up his temples and back over dry skin, pressing hard on his eye sockets. 

He doesn’t realize the animalistic noise that he hears is from him until he can feel the beginnings of tears on his palms, dampening his wrists. A sound akin to a groan is pulling from deep in his chest behind his sternum. 

“Colin?”

His legs ache down to his calves, deep in his thighs, his hips aching as tendrils of hurt spread to his back, up to his shoulders. 

Nothing stings or smarts or stabs, only gnaws deep in his body. Maybe he needs to sleep. Scratch that, he definitely needs sleep, but there’s just not enough time. There’s never enough time. 

He flinches in surprise when he feels a hand on his shoulder, heavy and warm and he does his best not to melt into the touch right then and there because he can’t, there are things to do and he really has to stop being stupid and just - get to work, stop all this useless, unfounded affliction, and pull it together. 

“Have you slept, like...at all?”

And he doesn’t know how to say that if he sits down he may never get up again, that sitting down is the first step in lying down and letting his body fall into rest and he can’t do that, because that feels like giving in. And he doesn’t want to give in, because then he’ll never stand up again, only sleep. And sleep. For ever, for hours, for days, weeks, months. He’ll spend his conscious hours overwhelmed by this gnashing of his brain and his body until he just sleep more and more and more. 

So no. He hasn’t really slept. Or sat down. Because he’s not going to give in this time, this time-

The familiar throb hits hard at his hips again, like an old injury that still acts up, like he’s being tugged from a centerfold and split in two, like he’s cracked in half like the porcelain, all too thin eggshell that gives way into gooey guts. The ache that is tugging at his lower spine is the same as the ache splitting his sternum. 

This time Michael’s hand is sliding up his shoulder so it rests where his neck starts to slope into collarbones, and he actually is leaning into it now, like some pathetic, depraved animal. It’s not...it’s just...Michael’s hand is so warm and he’s...it’s all hurting and he kind of just…

“ _ Hurts… _ ”

He feels Michael’s hand on his forehead, warm and gentle and he knows that this depravity isn’t useful but he’s useless anyhow, languid with pain searing through his bones.

“Are you sick? Colin? What hurts?”

He doesn’t have the vocabulary or the current faculties to explain the fucking vastness of this terrible, terrifying pressure, deep in his body, a physical manifestation of all of this woe and worthlessness.

The same sound comes again, a guttural keening like a wretched dog made skinny by terrible owners who force it to live in a crumbling doghouse in the rain- except this time he’s the owner and the dog, and the doghouse and rain as well. Just fragmented fucking issues. 

Michael may be the only person in the world who understands. 

Warm hands wrap firm around him, large palms flat against his back until he’s pressed close to Michael and his head fits into the crevice of Michael’s collarbone, his nose nestling into soft fabric.

His breath stutters as a hand, soft but calloused and large and firm but gentle and kind slides up his spine, resting on the back of his neck right above his sweater.

All of this alleviation feels awfully overwhelming and he tries to breathe over the beginnings of a sob, tears leaking slowly out of his eyes still clenched shut. 

It’s when the hand resting on his neck moves to card through his hair that his lungs lose control and he gasps out a sob, muttering apologies profusely as tears fucking stream down his face. This is ridiculous, to be acting like this, to be losing it so thoroughly. 

He tries to be quiet but Michael is murmuring gentle words and he feels sick to his stomach. Michael shifts forward a step, making his leaden feet move back and he doesn’t even realize why until the firm couch hits the back of his knees and he succumbs.

He succumbs, he sits. Or rather, he half collapses and is half lowered onto the couch, and Michael is still hugging him.

They don’t do this. They don’t touch each other like this, not really. Not for this long, not when he’s silently crying like a maniac, chest heaving with aching gasps and tears burning at his skin. But today has been filled with all kinds of exceptions. 

Michael shifts them so he’s halfway laying on top of Colin, legs straddling his thighs before he shifts over to his side, and he feels so shattered in this moment that the sobs tear out of him like pages ripped through a book. It’s all the pressure that’s been crushing the can and instead it’s like a barrier, a comforting blockage. 

No one tells him to shut up. Michael envelops him like a shield, like a great big defense from all this ache and he feels like all these shattered pieces are being pressed and held together simply by the weight of Michael over him and around him. He takes the temporary respite like he’s cradling a bird, letting this feeling of love coat his mind in honey thick syrup. 

All the hurt doesn’t go away, doesn’t alleviate. In fact it may be worse, deep in his bones, this longing that he doesn’t even want to consider. But it doesn’t matter, none of that matters, not when he’s in the best bone crushing hug from Michael he’s ever gotten, grounded and approaching sane. 

He doesn’t have the energy to be upset as sleep threatens to drag him under, chest still occasionally heaving with the intake of breath that grates his ribs.

He falls asleep, this hankering hunger of ache pounding at his chest beating in time by the steady rhythm of Michael’s heart. 


End file.
